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Commentary

The 80-20 Rule in Mobile Commerce

A new look at mobile power
users finds that they spend a disproportionate amount of time using apps compared to average users.

For purposes of the data analysis by SessionM, power users were defined as the third of
people responsible for the most in-app actions on the company’s rewards-based network.

These power uses accounted for most (78%) of the total time spent in apps.

This reminds me
of the old 80-20 rule, where 80 percent of a given activity is done by 20 percent of the people, among various other iterations.

This makes me wonder if mobile commerce is now at the 80-20
stage, where 20 percent of the high-level activity is being done by a relatively small percentage of users.

We do know from various research reports that a large percentage of mobile users at
least try different things.

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For example, more than half (52%) of consumers used a mobile device to book travel in the last 90 days, according to a recent report from JiWire.

Another
study found that a large percentage (85%) of smartphone owners use their mobile device to compare information about companies, products and pricing before making a purchase. The research by Kentico
also found that mobile users have a low threshold for satisfaction, with 44% saying they wouldn’t return to a website that wasn’t mobile-optimized.

But many of the studies around
mobile commerce tend to measure what is done on the device but not necessarily how frequently.

As a result, a study might show that a large percentage of people have, say, shopped using a
mobile device but not necessarily if it has become part of their regular behavior.

There clearly are many power users in the market (and you know who you are), who leverage mobile to the max.
They scan for price matching, tap into deals based on location and download and delete apps to suit current needs and desires.

They continually see and extract the value from their smartphone
and tablet. And then there is everybody else.

So the 33% of people who use apps most are responsible for 78% of the use time. The only surprise is that this figure is much lower than one would have expected from the 80:20 rule (80% is used by the top 20%). Any idea why?

Chuck Martin is Editor of the AI & IoT Daily at MediaPost and writes the daily Connected Thinking column. He is a NY Times Business bestselling author and his latest book is “Digital Transformation 3.0” (The New Business-to-Consumer Connections of The Internet of Things.) He is CEO of Net Future Institute and a frequent keynote speaker internationally. Follow him on Twitter @chuckmartin and contact him at Chuck@MediaPost.com.